If I Were President

I really want to get behind Elizabeth Warren and give her my full support for the Democratic nomination, but I can't, and here's why. 

Policy idea #1

Wipe away student loan debt.

But wait, I paid my student loan debt. Lots of it. For many years, as I toiled away at a very low-income job. Paid. Every penny. And it never occurred to me to get mad about it. I'd taken out the loans, I knew what I was doing!

Rather than let the next generation off the hook, they should learn how to decide how much to borrow without going into excessive debt, and then pay back their loans. They should learn to strategize for maximum value, like going to a community college the first two years, then transferring the credits to the university of their choice.

The other issue here is higher education shouldn't cost what it does. Elizabeth Warren (and of course, all the candidates) should consider some regulations on the salaries of top university administrators. Many of them make million-dollar salaries. Anyone who can't do an excellent job for under a million isn't qualified to do the job. The second thing I would look at is the textbook scam all universities engage in. Students have to use the most current version of the textbook, priced outrageously high, and they often can't buy an earlier version because the newer one was changed by three words. Used books aren't reasonable either. 

Policy idea #2

Bail out homeowners who are underwater with their mortgages instead of the banks.

I agree the banks should not have gotten bailed out for the mess they made with junk loans from predatory lending practices, but the homeowners should've known not to buy a house they couldn't afford. If a person buys a house out of their financial range, then can't pay when the balloon payments  on their junk mortgage balloons, they should face some consequences. 

When I bought my first home, the mortgage lender suggested a mortgage with a balloon payment. I went home, Googled it, and told him no thank you. I will take a 20-year fixed-rate mortgage from you, or from someone else. 

Take responsibility for the state of your own affairs. 

Policy idea #3

I have no idea what Elizabeth Warren's take on this is, but something I believe needs to be addressed is the untenable gap between what CEOs and other executives get paid relative to what everyone else gets paid. Everyone employed by a company adds value. Everyone should get paid according to their value, rather than some crazy inflated, unmerited figure. 

Here's why I do like Elizabeth Warren. She understands the economy needs to be more balanced. This can be achieved partly by reducing the gap between what executives make and what the rest of the staff makes. She understands that the tech bros whose code is now running our lives through their social media channels should not be wielding the power we have handed them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all of them, need to be broken up and regulated. They are addictive, causing an epidemic of anxiety and depression, and are easily manipulated to spread dangerous misinformation and pit people against each other. I have no social media accounts, and zero interest in handing my time, my mental space, my life away to some tech bros. The only candidate I've heard address this at all, is Elizabeth Warren.